


Patriotic Duties

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Humor, M/M, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:56:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29915166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: Unfortunately, Riza is used to being the only one who ever gets anything done around here.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 21
Kudos: 245





	Patriotic Duties

**Author's Note:**

> Hawkeye ships it. I will stand by that.
> 
> When I said "I'm going to write more short fics than anybody wants", I MEANT IT. ;___; My apologies to your inboxes. This is just… what we're doing this week. :x
> 
> Set circa 1920, as usual. :) Brief language warning.

Riza would like the record to show that she has the best interests of Amestris at heart and in mind, regardless of the particulars. Riza would also like the record to show that she is frequently the _only_ person in his office, and possibly this building, who seems to keep sight of that at all times.

It’s not really Roy’s fault that he’s been blindsided like a car getting T-boned at a busy intersection. Roy is brilliantly incisive and insightful when it comes to other people, and fantastically stupid when it comes to himself. It makes him a fine leader and an extraordinarily frustrating friend.

Riza misses the days when Hughes used to tell him that to his face. It didn’t change anything, of course, but at least it was satisfying, and it saved her having to do the job.

She also misses the days when they were young enough for her to say _You read an awful lot of books, but you still don’t_ know _anything_ , which she has always felt got the message across fairly succinctly.

Adults have to play insipid games governed by very different rules, though, which Riza finds tiring. It’s all about segues and sugarcoating and metaphors; what a colossal waste of time and energy when one could just grab the other person by the shoulders and shake them gently until they get the point.

The point, today, is that if Roy doesn’t stop gazing out the window and sighing to himself in a way that he seems to think is subtle, General Mustang’s team is never going to accomplish anything ever again. Roy is not going to account for himself well in any upcoming meetings with the brass; he is not going to ascend to the Führership and sort out this charnel house once and for all; he is not even going to manage to sign more than three requisition forms per day. At this rate, they’ll be here until the next solar eclipse.

Sugarcoating. Metaphors. All that nonsense. Someone needs to step up and deal with this; as usual, it has to be her.

Mercifully, she feels, she waits until the rest of the team has scuttled out of the office at the stroke of five. Then she steps into Roy’s office and pulls the door shut behind her.

“Sir,” she says. “Permission to speak freely?”

He manages to stop sighing soulfully long enough to blink at her in slightly guarded confusion. “Granted.”

“Thank you,” she says. “You have been spending a truly remarkable amount of time gazing at Ed during pub nights lately.”

Roy’s eyes start to widen before he catches himself. He knits his fingers together and lowers his face behind them. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“That’s not the point,” Riza says. “That’s just context. The _point_ —” She unholsters her sidearm, switches off the safety, looks at him, and slowly switches it back on. “The point is that if you don’t ask him the fuck out, sir, I am going to do it for you.”

Roy stares at her over his hands. She stares back.

“Oh,” Roy says.

“Yes,” she says, because she has run out of sugar to coat with. “‘Oh’.”

Roy’s hands curl around each other a fraction tighter. “Is there a…” His eyes flick to the gun in her hands. “…deadline?”

In a very morbid way, she has always loved that word. “Can I expect results by Monday?”

By the looks of it, Roy really believes that one possible outcome is having the treads of Ed’s compensatingly thick boot soles imprinted on the wreckage of his surprisingly fragile little heart. That’s probably the primary reason that Roy hasn’t done something definitive already.

Apparently Roy has a blind spot where it comes to Ed, too—or at least to the place where his universe meets Ed’s; maybe something disappears into the overlap.

Roy is going to teach Ed how to slow down. Ed is going to teach Roy how to lighten up. Unlike Roy’s usual chess-game choices, everyone is going to win.

Roy heaves one last sigh.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” he says. “Monday it is.”

She holsters her sidearm again. And then she smiles.

“Very good, sir,” she says.

He glowers at her.

“I mean it,” she says.

Maybe, she thinks, as she lets herself out again and quietly closes the door behind her, she’ll ask for permission to speak freely again on Monday so that she can say _I told you so_.


End file.
